


Lip Gloss and Black

by XaviaAndromedovna



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, BAMF Jennifer, F/F, Xenophobia, hunter!Jennifer, vampire!Kali
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XaviaAndromedovna/pseuds/XaviaAndromedovna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In literature— Julia only really cares about literature and hunting— the vampire is a figure of seduction, of temptation to evil, literalized by the voluptuous figure of a woman.  And if ever there were a walking cliché, it would be Kali.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lip Gloss and Black

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for [Teen Wolf Reverse Bang](http://twreversebang.livejournal.com) on LJ. It is based on [this artwork](1214368) by [kymericl](http://kymericl.livejournal.com) who asked for hunter!Julia and vampire!Kali. Neither _Teen Wolf_ nor "Lip Gloss and Black" by Atreyu are mine. Beta'd by the ever-wonderful Raven; any hilariously nonsensical verb tenses are all me.

In literature— Julia only really cares about literature and hunting— the vampire is a figure of seduction, of temptation to evil, literalized by the voluptuous figure of a woman. And if ever there were a walking cliché, it would be Kali.

She wasn’t always like this, of course. When they first met at a college party ten years ago, Kali was your run-of-the-mill, newly-out sophomore and Julia was delighted to corrupt her in all the right ways. All it took was one wink and the girl was in her bed. A semester later she still hadn’t left it.

They had been exclusive for four months when Kali got bored and hooked up with Ennis, a stereotypical frat star who also happened to be a vampire.

Now Julia, or Jennifer as she always introduces herself when not with her family, is a distinguished hunter from a long line of distinguished hunters. The Baccari name is infamous in Italy for its specialty in handling vampires. So when her… when Kali was turned she went into business mode and made fast work of the nest to which Ennis belonged. Professor Deucalion in Classics, a pair of twins on the lacrosse team, her TA Peter Hale— none of them were a match for her fast-flying stakes. But she couldn’t bring herself to kill Kali.

“What’s the matter,” the vampire taunted, her once-mocha skin paler in the moonlight. “Does Judgmental Jennifer finally feel an emotion other than angry disgust? You’re not gonna kill me.”

And suddenly, Julia had an idea.

“No,” she stated quietly. “I’m going to cure you.”

Kali laughed. “ _Cure_ me? The past two weeks have been the best of my life.” She sashayed closer with achingly slow, mesmerizing steps. “I see better, hear better, move faster— this is much more fun than being a boring old human.” Julia bore her stake like it was the only thing standing in the way of her destruction (it probably was). Kali appeared just behind her, lips at her ear. “Don’t you wanna know what it feels like?”

They were the same words Julia had said to the girl when they met, and they sent a shiver down her spine. Whether of fear or desire, she wasn’t sure. “What, bloodlust? No, thank you.”

“I know you, Jennifer. Or should I say, _Julia_.” Kali circled in front of her, as close to her face as she dared get. “I know why you’re so angry now. You’re scared. Scared of losing to the creatures of the night— or worse, becoming one of them, something your dear old mom would have to come hunt.”

“Fuck you.”

“Promise? I know what you’re most scared of, though.”

“Stop it!” Julia backed away from her swiftly. “Damn it,” she cursed, registering a forgotten tear on her cheek. “I’ll let you live. But I swear to God if you kill or turn even one person I will change my mind. And when I get my hands on a cure, I’m coming to find you and 

I’m cramming it down your throat if I have to.”

There was a wild glimmer in Kali’s eye as she too created space between them. “I’ll bite you before you get the chance. Do we have an understanding?”

Julia wasn’t sure if she was referring to her offer or to the threat just made, but after much internal debate, she resignedly lifted the stake in the air as a gesture of peace. “For now.”

~~~  
Finding a cure was surprisingly difficult— apparently few had ever tried. It would require a lot of trial and error, and a lot of test subjects.

Julia was not and never would be a scientist. That wasn’t how her brain workd. But she had the imagination of an alchemist, and faith that she could find what she sought. Much to her surprise, imagination and faith were significantly more important to magic than scientific precision.

By the time Julia had perfected it, Kali was long gone. Throughout the years, they ran into each other from time to time, when Julia was on jobs that always seemed to lead back to her former something. Julia would do what she came to do, often sparring with the wild woman in the process, and every time, they’d go through the same routine.

“You want the cure yet?”

“No. You want the bite yet?”

“No.”

But Julia could see the tiredness in Kali’s eyes, the approaching boredom. Kali wasn’t cut out for immortality.

And if she were being honest with herself, she’d know that Kali saw through her as well, saw the frantic wish to be invincible, not to have to worry about being gutted in her sleep or succumbing to the disease that plagued her family. (It was rumoured that the Baccari’s pissed off a particularly powerful witch, who decreed no Baccari would see the age of 45. So far, no one had lived long enough to contradict that claim.) Julia was nearly incapacitated daily with the fear that her time was running out, and every time Kali offered, it got harder and harder to say no.

If she were being _really_ honest, she would acknowledge that part of the reason she always almost said yes was that she still believed _somehow_ , some way, her and Kali would be together again. Julia should have moved on by now. Kali probably had. Certainly, it would be a fantasy doomed to failure if she were to take Kali up on her offer and run off into the moonset with her to start their life together.

Or maybe it was just what she needed.

~~~  
Their last skirmish was probably the hardest to handle.

Julia had been trailing a vampire for the past eight blocks, heels clacking in the most obvious way possible. One of the many perks of hunting in a major city was that it was totally plausible for two people to walk in the same direction for blocks at a time and not seem like one was following the other. As far as anyone could tell, she was just a girl out on the town on the way to some big party. With a stake in her purse and a knife in her garter belt.

As her target turned a corner, she forced herself to remain at the same pace. Sure enough, as she too turned, her target continued obliviously on. He stopped to look in a window, and, as she strutted past him, she nonchalantly plunged the stake into his heart, removed it, and kept walking.

Two hundred paces later, she heard footsteps in time with hers at her back. She stopped. The footsteps stopped. She turned around and saw a gorgeous butch with a row of too-pointy teeth.

“I saw your handiwork back there,” she mused with a hungry swagger. “Poor kid wasn’t the brightest.”

“Nor are you if you’re outing yourself to me of all people. I didn’t even know you were here.”

“I don’t need to hide from a pretty girl. Besides…” The vampire signaled for two others to bring out a struggling, snarling Kali. “I heard you like ‘em with a little bite.”

Her parents would be impressed by how even she kept her voice. “Let her go.”

“Mmm, no. You see, you’re getting quite a reputation, Ms. Baccari. Second most kills in America. But then, your friend here has an even bigger reputation as the one who always gets away.” The leader pulled out a laser pointer and flashed it at Kali. It was a Baccari original, her father’s idea to conceal UV rays and use them on the job. Kali cried out as the laser burnt a design into her flesh.

“Stop it!”

“Why? She’s just a vamp, after all, right? Why should it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Oh. Well then I guess you don’t mind if we chop off her head.” She drew a sword out of thin air.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to leave. That simple. You leave and never come back, and she walks.”

Julia darted a glance over to the captive vampire and saw defeat in her eyes. “You expect me to take your word for it?”

“Not really. Tell you what: we’ll fight for it. You win, my associates kill Kali. I win, I kill you.”

“Why the hell would I agree to that?”

She grinned mischievously and raised her sword. “Good question. Wasn’t exactly an offer though.”

Admittedly, a vampire with a sword was fairly intimidating, especially when all one had was a piece of wood and a pocketknife. She lucked out by being right next to a dumpster, so she grabbed the biggest thing she could easily wield¬—a bit of PVC pipe¬– and started blocking the aggressor’s strikes. She was well aware that she was just buying time at this point. This time she felt well and truly fucked.

When she landed on her back in a puddle, she got an idea. Julia prayed in Latin fervently as she knocked her legs out from under her. She murmured the entire time they wrestled until the blessing was finished and, as she tore off her rosary and threw it down, the vampire started to roar.

Julia scrambled away as the rest watch, stunned. Their leader writhed in agony as her skin burnt. Julia picked up the sword, decapitated her unceremoniously, and stood before the others.

“Let her go.”

They let her the fuck go.

“Thanks,” Kali choked out, but Julia was already walking away. “Wait!’

Julia really shouldn’t turn around. They’d already made a mess of things by the looks of it.

“You know, you make it really hard for me when you do shit like this!”

“You make it hard for yourself, Kali. I always have to swoop in and save you when we could stop all of this if you’d just take the damn cure.”

“Why are you so obsessed with your ‘cure’?! We all know what you really want. You want to be one of us so badly, just so you can live another day with your books.”

Julia couldn’t say anything, because Kali was dead on. It was the one thing she always hid from herself, her dream that maybe she could make it work as a vampire, if only it meant surviving, getting to stop running and settle down.

Julia just walked away in silence.

~~~  
And so it is, ten years after they first laid eyes on each other, that Julia’s favorite cliché walks into the bar at which she finds herself and brings two drinks to the hunter’s table in the back.

“Wow,” Julia scoffs with a raised eyebrow. “You’re just asking for it now, aren’t you?”

“I’ll take it where I can get it.”

“Not exactly what I meant, but I like the way you think.”

“You ready for that bite yet?”

“You ready for that cure yet?”

If sexual attraction were on the visible spectrum, an electric blue cloud would be floating above the table while they play the game they’ve always played. Except this time’s different. There’s no trouble; Julia’s not on a case. For all she knows, Kali’s just paying her a social visit.

(Of course, this puts her on edge, because if Kali’s here, a case isn’t far behind.)

Maybe they can have a little fun.

She’s ten years out of practice but her mouth seems to remember what to do as they make their way to Julia’s hotel room. As should have been expected, it’s part altercation, part foreplay as they shove each other against any vertical surface they can before she falls on top of Kali in her bed.

They make quick work of each other’s clothes and Julia wastes no time finding that secret spot by Kali’s left nipple that always elicits moans of abandon. Part of her wants to take her time making her come undone, but she’s horny, and probably a little scared to be sleeping with someone who makes their living seducing people into being bitten. She settles between her legs.

Julia’s tongue is buried deep inside Kali when she hears it, a subtle scratch outside the window.

“What’s wrong?” Kali asks, but her eyes never were good at lying. Like a flash, Julia yanks a stake up from under the bed as the window shatters and the door is broken open. Three hungry sets of eyes crowd around them, of which one pair speaks with undeniable authority.

“Well done, sweetie. I’ve gotta say, your methods are unorthodox but they’re certainly effective.”

After her last big hunt Julia stupidly only has one stake, a quarter-flask of Holy Water, and an untested vial in the hotel room. Now might be the time for an experimental test trial.

She feigns at the leader who takes the bait, then launches her stake into one of the lackeys. Three against one is the slightest bit more manageable. But as she’s sparring with the leader, she realizes that it’s really more like two against two. Kali has dislodged the stake carefully and charged the remaining vamp with it. Her heart, completely oblivious to how inappropriately timed its reaction is, flutters at the thought that Kali would fight alongside her. When she hears the pained death cries of Kali’s battle partner, she goes for broke and reaches for her bag.

And time stops.

In a poetically simultaneous motion, the leader clamps down on her shoulder with his teeth at the same time Julia blows a powder into his face. He releases his grip and falls back, sneezing. Kali sneezes too, and suddenly their fangs are gone and the paleness in their skin is the mark of malnutrition instead of undeath.

The intellectual sector of her brain notes that she could _definitely_ weaponize the cure if it were that effective airborne. The rest of her brain is busy processing the fact that her body feels wrong _wrong WRONG_.

As she feels her body processing the change she knows is coming, she hears around her the sound of pleading, of a neck snapping, of Kali whispering soothing words into her hair.

“Julia? Julia, baby, we need to get out of here. The others will be here soon.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain when we’re safe.” Julia wants to laugh, because they will never be safe again, but it comes out more like a sob. She stands up with unnatural grace, calmly amasses her things, and leaves the room behind. Kali doesn’t make it to the door.

Carrying a passed-out human to her car— though significantly easier now— is not an efficient way to travel, especially as her body is still healing from the fight it endured earlier. She can feel it healing, just not fast enough to be useful. She’s not sure she’ll be ready for a fight.

Unfortunately for her, she finds one whether she’s ready or not. Two vamps lean against her vehicle with smug flashes of teeth. She gently sets Kali on the ground and approaches them.

“A vampire who hunts other vampires,” one of them jeers. “Talk about internalized oppression.”

While her fighting is even better now with her new powers, they still give her a run for her money, tag-teaming her like they’ve been doing it all their lives. She knows that unless she can get into her trunk, she’s fighting a losing battle. Her only hope is that Kali wakes up.

When she looks over at Kali for a second, she realizes that she’s not where she left her. Julia ‘accidentally’ drops her keys under the car before forcing the vamps away from the trunk. Now, all she has to do is hold them off.

Just when one of them is about to rip her throat out, a stake pierces his heart. Kali makes quick work of him and his friend before collapsing again in Julia’s arms.

“Thanks,”

“Yeah, you too,” Kali murmurs. Julia gingerly gets her into the passenger seat and starts driving in search of food for her starving friend.

~~~  


“I’m sorry,” Kali grounds out between bites. Her eyes are still bloodshot and she could use a tan and some sleep.

“What the hell just happened?”

Kali doesn’t look her in the eye. “I found the wrong nest and couldn’t leave. They knew I was the only vamp you’ve ever let live, and they wanted me to prove my loyalty. So much for that.”

Julia lets out a half-hearted snort. “Why’d you do it?”

Her answer is only detectable to supernaturally gifted ears. “Because maybe you were right about me.”

They stare into each others’ eyes and see their mutual pain. Julia licks her lips. “Maybe you were right about me too.”

“Of course I was,” Kali says off-handedly. “You spent all that time trying to cure me instead of yourself. It was only a matter of time before we got here.”

Julia grabs her hand. “I’m sorry.” They continue their meal in peace, then find a hotel at least a hundred miles away where Kali can get some much-needed sleep.

“Are you going to give up hunting?” It’s something she’s been asking herself all night. She has been a hunter her entire life, has built her identity and her daily life on this simple fact.

“Seems a little hypocritical, don’t you think?” She gets into bed next to Kali and holds her close. “If they leave us alone, I’ll leave them alone.”

“Us?”

Julia kisses her head and smirks. “I figure it’s stupid to keep pretending this isn’t inevitable. Why, is that too much commitment for you?”

“Probably. Think you can stop being a tragic hero long enough to make this work?”

She rolls her eyes, but it hits her that maybe she can let herself be happy after all. She’s got time now.

 

_After all these images of pain have cut right through you,_  
 _I will kiss every scar, and weep you are not alone…_  
 _Then I’ll show you that place in my chest where my heart still tries to beat._  
 _It sets us apart._


End file.
